Laniakea Supercluster & Big History Project

• Laniakea is the supercluster that contains the Milky Way galaxy.
• The universe has a web-like structure with densely and sparsely populated regions of galaxies.
• Understanding galaxy motions is essential for mapping cosmic structure.
• The study uses red and blue color coding to indicate if galaxies are moving towards or away from us.
• When the universe expands, gravity pulls galaxies together.
• New techniques study galaxy flow to accurately identify galaxies and define cosmic structures.
• Laniakea contains a significant mass concentration known as the Great Attractor.
• The Great Attractor influences the motions of galaxies, including the Milky Way.

Big History Project

• The Big History Project starts with the formation of the universe.
• The project provides a deeper understanding of history and systems.
• The project emphasizes the importance of seeing how various fields of study link together.
• The project explores human societies' development through different eras.
• Big History encourages a systems thinking approach.
• Big History demonstrates how various academic disciplines are connected.
• Big History connects science, history, and social science.

Importance of Studying Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities Together

• Studying the sciences, social sciences, and humanities together is crucial for understanding Big History.
• Big History reveals the connections between the universe, human existence, and our place in it.
• Big History shows how everything is linked, from the formation of elements in stars to the evolution of human civilization.
• Understanding these connections requires studying the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
• Integrating knowledge from various fields can be challenging.
• Big History is different from traditional history.
• Traditional history focuses on specific cultures or events.
• Big History focuses on the universe as a whole in order to merge knowledge from different sectors.

Complexity and Emergence

• Complexity refers to the increasing detail and organization of systems over time.
• Complexity can be observed at various scales, from the universe to individual societies and organisms.
• Structural complexity refers to increased complexity in the arrangement of components. This includes atoms, molecules, or cells.
• Emergence happens when complicated things come together to create something entirely new and unexpected.
• The emergence of life from on-living matter is an example of emergence.

What is Big History?

• David Christian outlines Big History, focusing on the timeline of the universe and humanity's place in it.
• He expresses awe at Earth's beauty.
• Understanding the origins of human life and the universe itself is important.
• Geology, biology, astronomy, physics and anthropology provide connetions in seeking answers.
• All humans have wondered about the same questions about existence and origins.
• Big History is a contemporary narrative combining knowledge across disciplines.
• It remains open to new information and perspectives.
• Big History underscores the connection between various life forms and cosmic events.
• By exploring from the Big Bang to the present, we see ourselves as part of a story, creating a sense of belonging.

Key Themes in Big History

• The increasing complexity
• The interconnectedness of everything from elements in stars to human civilization.
• Energy flowing is driving and essential for the creation and maintenance of complex systems.
• Goldilocks conditions arose at different ties, allowing new forms of complexity
• Collective learning
• Placing human history within Big History allows us to understand our place and role in the universe.

Agriculture and Collective Learning

• Agriculture increases collective learning and the ability to manipulate and extract resources.
• Human communities sharing information are needed to manipulate their surroundings in new ways.
• Warmer climates and population pressure are the earlier reasons for collective learning.
• Increased capacity of humans to extract energy and food led to larger, denser communities.
• Increased social complexity accelerates collective learning.

Modern World/Anthropocene

• Globalization, rapid progress in collective learning, and the use of fossil fuels define the modern world/Anthropocene era.
• Globally connected human communities have rapidly accelerating capacity to manipulate the biosphere.
• Acceleration in collective learning occurs at global scales.
• There is a vast increase in human use of resources, entirely creating new ways and social relatings.
• Humans are the first species in Earth's history capable of transforming the biosphere.

Life

• Life is complex chemicals and energy within complex molecules bound together chemically and physically in cells capable of reproduction.
• Abundant complex chemicals, moderate energy flows, and a liquid medium, such as water on a suitable planet are needed.
• Metabolism is the capacity to extract energy
• Reproduction is is the ability to copy themselves almost perfectly is also needed to give life
• Adaption to environment
• Homosapiens developed manipulative, perceptive, and neurological capacity.
• Biological structures govern the umon DNA.
• Long preceding period of evolution developed the highly developed manipulative, perceptive, and neurological capacity known as collective learning.

Chemical Elements

• Heavier chemical elements are hydrogen and helium nuclei.
• Increasing numbers of protons are linked by a strong nuclear force into increasingly large atomic nuclei.
• This requires extremely high temperatures created in dying stars and strong nuclear force.
• There is potential for chemical combination, mainly via electromagnetism.
• This creates an almost infinite range of new types of matter.
• Planets are new chemical elements and compounds in orbit around stars.
• There is diversity of materials bound together gravitationally and chemically into large balls of matter.
• They normally orbit stars and increase abundance of heavier elements in regions of star formation.
• They create new astronomical objects with more physical and chemical complexity and potential to generate even greater chemical complexity.

Thresholds of Increasing Complexity

• The first threshold is the Big Bang, the origin of the universe.
• It provided energy, matter, space, and time.
• Energy and matter existed within a rapidly expanding temprace.
• Uncertain, possibly quantum fluctuations existed within the multiverse and created everything around us.
• The second threshold had atomic matter formed as hydrogen and helium
• The inner core contained fusion and the outer layer had reserves of hydrogen and helium as Gradients of density and temperature in early universe and gravity created temperatures high enough for fusion.
• Fusion created new local energy flows and galaxies potential to create new chemical elements through fusion.

Key Features of Complex Things

• They consist of multiple diverse components
• They are arranged within a precise structure
• They have new or emergent properties
• Appear only where the conditions are just right
• Flow of energy holds them together
• They lose emergent properties without energy flow

Complex Entities

• Complex entities seem to be associated with flows of energy that help them maintain structure.
• Marbles flowing into a hole represent a static form of complexity requiring least energy to maintain.
• The most interesting forms of complexity are dynamic.
• More complex things require constant energy.
• The more complicated structures are the more energy needed to hold them together.
• Planets seem more complex then stars because more energy flows to them.
• Living things are more complex than planets, especially humans.

Scientific Origin Telling

• It is easier to tell a scientifically based origin story today because of advancements in scientific knowledge and technology.
• Technology allows gathering and analyzing more information.
• Rigorous testing of theories
• The study of scientific theories across several cultures has made our knowledge more exact.

Complex Things and Properties

• Complex things need to be arranged in the right pattern to work.
• Bits and pieces of an aircraft cannot do anything interesting by itself.
• A molecule of DNA needs to be correctly arranged for its purpose.
• It needs to provide all the information needed to assemble a living organism.
• If the properties are neutral, it may crash with the other
• The right temperatures can fuse the two hydrogen atoms to createa helium atom.
• These new features are examples of emergent properties.
• These entities can only emerge in the presence of goldilocks conditions such as is the surface of Earth.

Complex Entities and Components

• Complex entities require a combination of diverse simple components.
• Simple things like atoms contain few elements.
• Complex entities like DNA contain billions of atoms and have parts that arrange in a particular way.
• To perform specialized activies
• It needs to be arranged for particlar moving gears.
• Atom of hydrogen is arranged with the proton (+) in the center and an electron (e) moving around it (electromagnetic forces)

Chemical Structures and Cells

• Chemical elements were scattered into the space between stars.
• New forms of matter like water, dust, and ice began to gather around newly formed stars, forming first planetary systems.
• The universe combined structured in a specific way till Simple formed, but
• They Eventually formed the planet and mutalpeid in a short amount of time
• To create all dfferent kinds of organisms. Overtime, and new confections would appear
• This is what allowed the cells ti combine form
• The universe is the Opposite of simply and must remain in a consistent stage.

Story of the Universe

• The Basic shape of the story is increasing complexity
• The universe is about the emergence of this
• Complex things contain diverse components that are arranged in a precises way.
• Qualities are generating over 138 billions years
• The first universe was very simple at the beginning.
• The entire universe was in what cosmologis describe the radiation era.
• Whole the verse was in the sun, the eat was to tense to allow eate the creations of them.
• 200 million years after the star itself became a whole.

Atoms and Stars

• Atome, starts, planet, and cells wold exist
• The earth begin was cool and 400.000 years it original,

But there were also lost of atoms

• It has not been for that reason but the fact the start were that's
• It was that element the has allowed things to build from
• The first cell were simple had has more compexitity
• It alowing them to be at ease
• Energy into that spase

Scientific Understanding

• Origin stories are based on knowledge available that means
• It means new ways and devotions or
• the Scientific revolution-

How we differentiate our from tradional?

• It means the science
• That is the best

Big History

• Big HIstory and other or yin storie is based on the lonowledge host available to us
• Nowadays it means that lonowledge is derivect from modern science
• Modern Science the dominant form of knowledge in the modem world- goes backe
• to the 7th century scientific revolution
• Scientific unowledge is global nitbreach
• Helpful to think of big his as a moder scientific origin stom